[UPDATED] Controversial lecturer Kamarul Zaman appointed PM’s special officer

KUALA LUMPUR – Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) lecturer Kamarul Zaman Yusoff, who has been embroiled in a number of controversies over the years, has been appointed as special officer to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed this to The Vibes, but stopped short of providing details, including the commencement date of his service.

His appointment as part of Ismail Sabri’s office first came to light this morning after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) uploaded a poster of a symposium on promoting Bahasa Malaysia on its social media accounts featuring Kamarul Zaman.

The poster had attributed the lecturer as the “prime minister’s special officer”. 

The post on the PMO’s official Facebook page was later edited to attribute Kamarul Zaman merely as the symposium’s director, but a check on its edit history showed that he was first mentioned as the prime minister’s special officer.

The tweet published today morning publicising the event was later deleted.

Meanwhile, a separate posting by the Melaka government’s Facebook page maintained Kamarul Zaman’s designation.

The post by the Kerajaan Negeri Melaka page was later shared by Segambut DAP MP Hannah Yeoh on her Twitter account, as she sought confirmation from Ismail Sabri on Kamarul Zaman’s appointment. 

“I’m sorry PM, I just want to ask. Is it true this person has been appointed as the special officer to the prime minister?” she posted this evening.

Dozens of users have since responded to Yeoh’s tweet, questioning how a controversial figure like Kamarul Zaman could be picked to work closely with the prime minister, while lambasting Ismail Sabri for his choice.

The political pundit shot to infamy in March 2017, when he lodged a police report against Yeoh, who was then Selangor speaker, for allegedly driving a Christian agenda through her book Becoming Hannah: A Personal Journey, which was published two years earlier.

Several DAP leaders came to her defence as they issued separate statements against Kamarul Zaman, resulting in a defamation suit filed by him in 2020, which was struck out by the sessions court here last month.

In April last year, Kamarul Zaman was accused of stoking religious tensions after he reportedly questioned Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim’s motive of helping a Malay youth delivery rider by giving him a motorcycle, and described the lawmaker as a “Christian evangelist”.

The academician also made headlines in 2018, when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made a surprise appearance at a pre-general election forum in which Kamarul Zaman had harshly criticised the former prime minister for his old age.

A video clip of a photoshoot session during the forum became viral then, in which Dr Mahathir could be seen giving the lecturer a “death stare” as the latter stood awkwardly on stage.

Almost immediately following Pakatan Harapan’s victory in May 2018, Kamarul Zaman resigned as the director of Universiti Utara Malaysia’s Institute for Malaysian Political Analysis, although he is still a lecturer there.

In June 2020, he was banned by his university from posting any political material on his social media accounts. – The Vibes, May 19, 2022